Analysis

The record says more than the press release does

Most of what gets written about telecom starts from an announcement. We start from the documents underneath it: the FCC licence file and the order, the 10-K and the 8-K, the auction results, the orbital elements, the 3GPP plenary report and the statute. Read that way, the industry often looks different from its headlines, and now and then it looks like the opposite of them. Everything on this page comes from that reading. Every figure carries its source and its date, all of it is free to read, use and cite, and our client work stays where it belongs, with the client.

The analysis series

Each series takes one subject and asks five to eight questions of it, one per part, and answers each from the primary record rather than from what has been said about it. Six are published, and every one of them can be read on the site or taken away as an ebook. The seventh, on what spectrum and networks cost against what they earn, is being written.

Seven questions aboutdirect-to-deviceTwo satellite operators may transmit on American mobile spectrum, and both rent it.FCC · SEC · CelesTrakRead the series →
Eight questions about6G6G has a calendar with meeting numbers on it: specifications frozen in December 2028, the first American auction in April 2027 and the conference that settles the spectrum in late 2027.3GPP · ITU-R · FCC · SECRead the series →
Five questions aboutintegrated sensingA mobile network that senses is a radar, and a weak one beside a purpose-built radar: a metre and a half of range resolution against the metre the standard asks for, and echoes that fade with the fourth power of distance.3GPP · FCC · ITU-R · filingsRead the series →
Five questions aboutAI in telecom operationsAI is the lever every operator names in its cost programme, and no annual report puts a currency figure on what it has saved.SEC filings · earnings calls · 3GPP · FCCRead the series →
Five questions aboutnon-terrestrial networksAltitude makes the first four design decisions before anyone at a satellite company makes one, so the stratosphere, low orbit, medium orbit and the geostationary arc are four different businesses.CelesTrak · FCC · SEC · NTIA · ITU · 3GPPRead the series →
Five questions aboutprivate networks and neutral hostThe shared band at 3.5 GHz was sold as the home of the private network, and mobile and cable operators paid 86% of the money.FCC · NTIA · SEC · ITU-RRead the series →
In preparationSpectrum & Network Economics
A band is worth what comparable bands have cleared at, and the comparables are public. These parts will price spectrum from auctions and private transactions in one unit, then ask where the next megahertz stops paying for itself and what a network costs to build against what it earns.Auction results · transactionsIn preparation

Guides and reference

A competitor’s next move is usually on the record before it is in the news, and a strategy paper is only as sound as the words it leans on. These two pages cover both.

Guide Competitive intelligence from the public recordThe eight places a telecom competitor’s next move shows first, how to read a licence file and an annual report for it, how to mark what you know so a reported claim is never taken for a filed one, and where the record stops. Licence files and filings Reference Strategy glossaryForty terms, from balanced scorecard to win-loss analysis, each defined the way we use it and linked to the framework, guide or analysis that puts it to work. Forty terms

Free tools and templates

The tools run on the same sources as the series, so a figure in a workbook can be traced to the filing it came from, and each one says what it will not do as well as what it will. Nothing here asks for an email address.

Tool · Live What does spectrum cost?Give it a band, a market and a bandwidth and it returns what comparable spectrum has cleared at, in one unit, with the auction result behind every figure. It runs on the dataset behind part 4 of the direct-to-device series. FCC auction results Library Strategy frameworks132 frameworks, from SWOT to spectrum valuation, each worked as a set of questions. The page says when to use it and when not to, works out the answer as you type and exports it to PowerPoint, Word or Excel, and nothing you type leaves your browser. Runs in the browser Index Everything to downloadSix ebooks, three models, three templates, a board deck and a report, each free to download without a sign-up, and each with a worked example or the sources behind it. All of it Decisions The decisions we are asked about mostSix situations, from a board asking for a satellite plan to a spectrum position before an auction, each with what we would look at first and the tool you can use today. Six pages

Start with a diagnosis

Tell us what you are trying to decide. We reply in writing within two working days, with how we would approach it, what it would take and what it would cost.

Start a diagnosis The decisions we work on